Tabula Rasa, Reviving the MMORPG Genre?

A few months ago I was reading my PCGamer, the Starcraft II issue (August), and there was a interesting article by Ultima Online creator Richard Garriott, aka “Lord British”. It was basically about the growth MMORPGs have had over the last decade and how he expects the growth to continue. However, towards the end of the article he mentioned how a new MMORPG he was developing was going to change the MMORPG genre, Tabula Rasa. Having recently quit Lord of the Rings Online, I have been looking for a new MMO to play and decided to look up more about this game. Basically from what I read around, the game is an attempt to create a MMORPG with little down time and a whole lot of action.

Two of the big things that stuck out was travel time and the fighting system. Traveling has been minimized in 3 ways. One, the world map is much smaller than todays MMORPGs. No more riding 10-20 mins to just get somewhere or meet up with someone. Second is that all characters, regardless of class, have travel skills, so they can port to other locations in the game instantly. Finally, quests from what I read are all instances, so you don’t need to travel to some far distant corner of the map to get to it. They will be assessable from any major “hub” in the game. Hubs are what towns and cities are called in Tabula Rasa.Aside from short travel times, the fighting system has also been revamped. No more clicking a button and just waiting for your character to kill whatever your fighting. Fighting will be more involved and hopefully less boring. Boss fights shouldn’t be the only enjoyable fights in the game, so with a revamped fighting system hopefully regular monster should be fun to kill again.

This is one game I am definitely keeping my eye out on. Recently I quit LOTRO so I’m looking for a new MMORPG to pickup and this one is on the top of my list.